Salt Lake evening Democrat. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1885-1887, 1887-03-30
THAT MORMON DISGRACE.

Inc mormon papers are DlazlnS WILn
boundless indignation at the conditions
imposed by the Edmunds- Tucker bill.
The laws which have heretofore been
enacted for the suppression of polygamy
have been so easily eyaded that the
"Saints" have looked upon them with
the calm complacency of Indifference.
But this one excites them SO profoundly
and has caused such volcanic eruption
of denunciation that its efficiency is
clearly evident
There is, moreover, one very encouag-
ing sign. Only small minority of the
people of Utah are welded to polygamy.
The majority have always defended the
right of any man to plurality of wives
if he wishes them, but for themselves
they prefer one home and one wife as its
mistress. When the government, there
fore, places before them the alternative
to take the oath of obedience to the laws
of the country or to be deprived of GER
tain very valuable privileges, they take
the oath without any hesitation. This
fact has caused the more sanity to vent
their feelings in bitter reproaches and to
accuse their brethren of being recreant
to one of the most important and dis
tinctive revelations of this peculiar sect.
Of course the measures which are be-
ing put into operation against Mormon
ism are heroic, but they are not need
lessly SO. If we are ever to get rid of the
cancerous growth the surgeons knife is
necessity. The Mormons have been in
solently defiant for the last twenty years.
Their leaders have known-for they are
very shrewd fanatics, many of them
that the country, always restive under
the infiction of their presence, would
sooner or latersdevise means to get rid of
them.
Not one of us knew better than the
Mormons themselves that their whole
theory of social life was opposed to the
law of personal and domestic virtue in
culcated by our school system, our
churches and our public institutions.
Although part of our Republic, they
opposed its fundamental principles. They
have lived on the sufferance of a people
who were too busy to give them any at
tention and too Indifferent to appreciate
the fact that the evil, which would have
to be met, was growing stronger day by
day. They have been a nuisance intol-
erable since their first organization in
Manchester, N. Y, in 1880. While at
Kirkland, Ohio, their two leaders set up
a bank without charter, swindling the
people right and left, until a mob dragged
them out of bed and tarred and feathered
them both. When they went to Missouri
they were chased from county to county
by the exasperated populace. Such was
the popular Indignation against them in
Illinois that the city of Nauvoo, which
they had built, was cannonaded and
they were driven out at the point of the
bayonet.
Not able to live within speaking dis
tance OF true Americans, they fed to the
Salt Lake Valley. Here they have in
creased in numbers, wealth and influence.
The Government has used every fair
means to get rid of them, but they have
held on with the grip of desperate de-
At last it becomes necessary to meet |
fire with fire. The Edmunds-Tucker
measures are without doubt harsh, but
none too much so to accomplish the end
in view. They simply declare that the
Mormons must obey the laws; that
polygamy is a crime and is to punished
as such; that the Mormon Church cor
poration shall be broken up; that
children born of any other than the first
wife are illegitimate, and that no Nor
mon shall vote or sit on jury unless he
s willing to take oath to enforce the laws
which prevail in every other part of the
,onntry.
So the case stands. It's a difficult
problem to solve, and its solution will
'ause much suffering. But polygamous
hormonism must end some time, and
low is as good time as any.-New York
Herald 92d